


Poetic Justice

by tiptoe39



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gods, Humor, M/M, Retcon, Transformation, Tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without Gabriel, the world needs a Trickster. Dean is offered the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganoconner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/gifts).



Ideas, unlike people, are not easily killed.

You can tamp down on an idea, root out its followers and break them down, but there's always the idea, the potential for being, sitting out there like a bump in the road, waiting for someone to stumble on it and break their neck. And it's that idea, that potential, that makes certain things so hard to kill.

Like God. Like angels and devils. Like dreams. Anything that people need to explain their own existence is notoriously hard to kill. And even when you manage, even when you succeed in killing the embodiment of an idea, its potential is still out there, like a whirlpool, a hole in the world. Waiting for something to rush in, to fill it. To make it real.

There's a hole in the world now, and it's looking for a way to fill itself.

* * *

Dean's shifting through newspapers, looking for a case. A job, a distraction, a road trip. Anything. He doesn't like staying still. He feels like time is shifting all around him. And Sam by his side is steady and confusing, a signpost pointing in the wrong direction, a broken compass. Dean doesn't know what to make of him anymore.

The other day, Sam came home in the morning from a girl's house and commented loosely, "I feel like I'm picking up the slack for you, dude."

Dean looked up from the Nashville Times. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you remember how it used to be." Sam slung one long leg over a chair and folded his arms over the seat, his chin dropping into the middle of them. "Used to be you were the one chasing some girl and I was sitting in the motel room waiting for you to come back."

"Mmhmm." Dean didn't much want to follow this conversation to its conclusion.

Sam didn't notice his discomfort. "That's changed, huh?"

"A lot has changed," Dean said, His voice sounded rougher, harsher than he expected - he wasn't sure he even recognized himself. Was this him? Still?

It was, and it is. It's him, and it's Sam, and there's nothing between them. No secrets. They're brothers. Normal brothers.

Dean's starting to resent that they still pretend it's more.

His eyes slide over a police blotter column, a man declaring that his house has been broken into by a stampede of killer squirrels. Definitely supernatural enough to register as a case, but at the same time so ridiculous that it hardly seems even worth mentioning. It's possible the guy was attacked by some kind of creature, but at the same time, Dean almost hopes it really was killer squirrels. It'd at least be interesting and new.

What the hell could enchant a bunch of squirrels, though? There must be a branch of magic with power over animals. Or it's a skinwalker, pissed off at this guy for cruelty to animals. Maybe he used to run over squirrels for fun in his RV.

Or, Dean thinks suddenly, maybe he killed a Chippendale's dancer. So he's being attacked by Chip and Dale.

OK, he's just gonna pretend a pun that bad never showed up in his brain. But still. Something this bizarre should be poetic justice. If only because that would amuse Dean.

Not that Dean gets amused by the suffering of innocent people. Or even slightly guilty people. He's not like that.

There was someone who would have appreciated this. But that someone's gone. And Dean didn't like him that much when he was alive. Still, the guy'd just started to come round when he was killed. Seems to Dean that after a lifetime of making sure everyone got their just deserts, that was a hell of an unjust way of going.

Too depressing to dwell on. Dean shunts the thought aside. He keeps doing that, going back into the past, romanticizing what they've been through before. What's the use? It's gone.

But there's just not that much left in the future to look forward to.

* * *

The recent run of cases have all been incredibly creepy, and although he isn't prone to nightmares as a rule, Dean's been having some bad nights. Tonight's involves a thousand music boxes, all playing out of tune, the stilted noise from each making the others sound even more sour. His head aches, his stomach turns, and he isn't sure the noise isn't going to melt the walls. When he wakes up, the awful, repetitive drone of them is still in his head, and his skull feels like it's been struck from within. It's chiming like a bell.

Everything feels sick and wrong lately, like the life he's been pursuing has been twisted into a dark parody of itself. The white picket fence was broken down, muddy grey slats hanging disjointed against the fabric of his memory. And the freewheeling on-the-road mentality has never recovered since Dean's journey to hell; everything that he's done since, all the chicks and the fights and the beers, feel like a pale reflection of a life that can't be recaptured.

Who is he, now, after all he's been through? What is there left for him to be?

Dean talked about it to Sam once. "I spent 40 years in hell," he said, "but it doesn't show. Honestly, I'm not 30, I'm 70. I'm an old man, I just look really good."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Seriously!" Dean went on. "By the time I really hit 70, I'm gonna be a hundred and ten. If I even make it that long." He sighed. "You wanna know something weird? With every damn thing we hunt, I'm more and more surprised every time we survive. The thing I'm scared of most right now is dying of old age."

He expects something to tear him to shreds, eventually, again. He's felt it before, he can stand it. But what if he's too good? What if, with everything the night throws at him, he survives it all, kills them all?

What then? What if the music boxes never run down?

There's too much melody in his head and his memory. It doesn't feel anything like the kind of music Dean actually likes. He has to go for a drive and let AC/DC set his mind at ease.

* * *

The road feels good, the old steady rhythm of his best girl beneath him, chugging along into the night. He can read her every mood, he can feel every hiccup of her engines. She's familiar, and good, and steady. The life he knows well, there beneath him and around him. Holding him up, holding him safe, holding him in.

Holding him down.

He's never harbored any ill will toward this car. Even when he was fighting with Sam, fighting with Dad, the car was always a safe place. He'd lean into the leather of the seats and find the foundation he needed for his world to hold together. She's never been a trap.

But just now, he feels like he's trying to drive her so hard even she'll be left behind.

He's got solidity now. He's got stability. And the good kind, the kind that's based in family and legacy. He's a hunter, with his brother, like old times, before all the madness. Before angels and devils drove up from the earth and down from the skies to tear it all apart. He held on as hard as he could then, held on so tight that it was locked into his skin, an unbreakable bond that neither heaven nor hell could crack.

But what if he wanted to? Could he break free? Or has he tied himself down so surely that he's locked himself into a fate that's unchangeable?

Maybe it's the truth that he's always been driving hard to escape something. But now he's driving even harder, just to escape the fact that he can't escape anymore.

"I gotta get it together," he mutters to himself, a fist pounding on the steering wheel, as an endless red light stares him down. "This isn't right. Something..." _Something's missing._

"True. Most notably, me."

Dean whirls. The light is so dim, the streaks of rain so fat against the windows, that for a moment he thinks he's gone back in time again. The dead man in the back seat is an echo of an earlier time, a time when Dean had, if not fun, at least purpose.

But the light turns green, illuminating Gabriel's eyes and making them swim eerily sea-green. "Go," he prompts, waving a hand.

"You're dead," Dean says stupidly.

"Yup." Gabriel waves at the traffic signal again. "Go."

The car lurches forward without Dean's permission, and he grabs the steering wheel, pulling as though on the reins of an obstinate horse. The wheel responds in his hand, and as soon as his foot hits the pedal the car is back under his control.

Dean glances in the rear view mirror. The same puggish nose, small mouth and clefted chin stares back at him, every inch the man - or, at least, the form - he remembers. "So what is this? Angels can be ghosts now?"

Gabriel smiles, a crooked thing that looks out of place on his face. "Not exactly," he says. "I'm not me, precisely."

Dean snatches up an aluminum foil hamburger wrapper and tosses it over his shoulder. The mess of greasy silver smacks Gabriel on the cheek and falls useless at the side. "You're you," Dean says.

"I'm _solid,_ " Gabriel corrects, and he leans forward to pick the wrapper up from the floor of the car. "Which is pretty impressive, I gotta say. It's a testimony to the sheer power of my awesome that I can manage to be solid, even though it's not really me."

"How the hell is it not you? You're in my car. Playing with my leftovers."

"If it were me, that thing would be wrapped around your unmentionables," Gabriel says casually. He spreads his fingers, and abruptly, the wrapper slips right through the flesh of his palm and falls again. "I'm dead, bozo. You know that."

"So if you're not you," Dean says, pulling over to the side of the road, "what are you?"

Gabriel waits for the car to slow to a stop, waits for the lurching moment as it falls still. "I'm kind of... the idea of me."

"Say that again?"

"I'm not me, I'm the idea of me. The concept of the Trickster. I was _it,_ you know. I wasn't a Trickster, I was _the_ Trickster. Without me there are still comedians and self-righteous assholes, but none with phenomenal cosmic power. I don't exist. The idea of me's all that's left."

Dean clutches his head. "That is the most convoluted thing I ever--"

Gabriel whistles. "25-dollar word there."

"So if you're the idea of you, how is that not... you?"

"It's not me because I can do squat right now," Gabriel says flatly. "No tricks left. No angel power, no homespun TV sets, no slow-dancing aliens. Just a thing that kinda looks like me, kinda sounds like me, and can sort of manage to be here."

"That makes less sense the more I think about it, so I'm not gonna bother." Dean harrumphs, shifts in his seat. "New question. Why are you here?"

"Trying to fill a hole."

Dean makes a face.

"Why did I know you were going to go there? Sicko. Like I said, I'm just the idea of me. I don't exist anymore, and that means there's a hole in the world. I'm looking for a way to fill it."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, there needs to be a Trickster if I'm ever gonna rest in peace."

"And how the hell am I sup--"

Dean stops short. He goes white. "You're _not._ " But a glimmer has entered Gabriel's eyes.

"You're in the right spot for it. You've got the sensibility."

"No." The word speeds out of Dean's mouth. "No."

"I haven't even made my pitch yet!" Gabriel leans over so his chin is hanging over the passenger side of the front seat. "It's a good one, too. Been rehearsing it. Ready?"

Dean slumps. "Do I have a choice here?" Gabriel shakes his head brightly. "All right. Just-- start from the beginning, and don't give me any bull. What's this hole you're talking about?"

"Look at it this way." Gabriel phases right through the seat, ends up sitting next to Dean in the front of the car. He folds his arms behind his head and tilts his head toward Dean. "You've run into Death already, right? And Fate. Some people are more than people, OK? I'm an archetype. There's got to be me, somewhere. Someone's gotta be the Trickster. Now, some poor schmo can get called up out of nowhere, or I can pick someone before I kick off entirely. So, I've picked someone." He leans in, and his eyes glint that green-amber hue that Dean's never been entirely sure how to characterize. "And it's you, Dean."

Something about the way he's smiling, the flash of his eyes, makes Dean swallow hard before he answers. "Yeah, I got that much. Why?"

"Hey, you liked my style when we first met," Gabriel says. "The feeling was mutual. You're cool. You can pull it off. And frankly, Dean, you're the most qualified applicant I've ever seen."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, you've been a vessel for angels. Hypothetically, at least. You've been a vampire. Hell, you were even Death for a while. There's something about you that tells me you could be anything. Why would I not want to tap that?"

Dean draws back. His lip curls.

"Potential, dumbass. I want to tap your potential." Gabriel rolls his eyes. "And let's face it, Dean, after what you've been through, you think a couple of hunts are gonna cut it? You've tried the white picket fence thing. It didn't take. And no offense, but Sam looks like he can pretty much take care of himself without you."

"You drag Sam into this, I'll--"

"Relax, Kujo. I can't _do_ anything. But really." His voice softens. "You did your job, Dean. Better than any of us expected us you to do. You protected Sammy-boy so well that you guys even averted the Apocalypse through the power of your epic brotherly love. Enough already with Sam. What about _you?_ "

Dean's jaw flaps, but nothing comes out. There's nothing to say. Gabriel's got him pinned, sure as a bull's-eye on a dartboard.

"There's something about you, Dean," Gabriel says. "Something that everybody wants a piece of. You could be anything you wanted to be. So think about it." His voice drops to a charged whisper. "Why not be a god?"

The possibilities spark in Dean's mind despite him. His calloused, dull human hands alive with power. Fatigue falling from his weary back. All at once the world that's dealt him blow after blow, his to shape, to punish. And does the world ever deserve it.

Wild fear grounds him. He holds tight to the shoulder strap of his seatbelt. "No. No. Just-- no."

Gabriel regards him through glimmering eyes. "I saw that," he says. "I don't blame you. I didn't handle it the way you would. But that's the point." His lips press together briefly, and he shifts, sitting straight up. "You can make it work the way you want. I bet you think you can do better. I'm giving you the chance. Just think about it. That's all I'm saying." He lifts his hands, wide palms spread, and his eyebrows quirk up twice before he's gone.

* * *

Dean comes back to find Sam awake. He's sitting on the edge of his bed, fingers curled around a cup of water, and at Dean's entrance he looks up with a vaguely worried face. "Hitting the hard stuff?" Dean jokes with a nod at Sam's glass.

He doesn't get a smile in return. "Everything OK?"

Dean drops his jacket on the bed and avoids Sam's eyes. "Yeah. Just had a dream. Went for a drive to shake it off." He figures he can save the metaphysics and godhood offers for morning.

Maybe _he_ can, but Sam's less likely to leave it alone. "A dream? What about?"

"Bad music," Dean says flatly. "Nothing, Sammy, it was a dream. I'm fine."

Sam shrugs. "If you say so. You sure there's nothing bothering you?"

Dean glares at him.

"Right," Sam says, sliding along the bed to kick the sheets down. "I'll just go back to bed, then."

Dean feels vaguely guilty. They have a bad track record of keeping secrets, the two of them. Sooner or later something will come out. It always does.

But does that mean it always _will_? Is Dean as locked into this relationship as he was into the angels' plans, as he was into the hunting life? Doesn't he ever get a say in what he wants to be?

He grumbles away the guilt and climbs into bed without another word. Damn it, this time he's not saying anything, and it's not because the information is dangerous (though it probably is) or because it'll shock Sam (though it probably will). It's because Dean _wants_ to not say anything. Just to prove that he _can._

And that's it, that's where he leaves things, and he thinks that's where they'll stay. But just before he nods off, Sam says, "You know I'm here if you want to talk," that cloying benign voice crawling into his personal space, and Dean feels vaguely assaulted. He pretends he's already asleep.

* * *

Something's been assaulting denizens of the Tenth Street suburb of Tuscon, Arizona. Dean and Sam swelter in their FBI suits and listen to laborer's pidgin-English tales of the masked man. Dean thinks it's Zorro. Sam laughs. It's a perfectly healthy, typical bit of fun between the two of them. It feels usual. Old-hat. These things used to be comfortable. Now they feel cliched. It could be any reference to anything at any time. It's a stale taste in his mouth.

Turns out to be a cursed tribal mask from Africa being held in the personal collection of a developer who's been gentrifying the 10th Street area. And by gentrifying, please read evicting longtime residents from their homes to put in a mini-mall. The mask is unwittingly doing his work for him. But he turns around and begs Sam and Dean for help, because now that these grisly murders are happening, his investors want to pull out. It's all delightfully ironic.

Dean thinks it's a shame to destroy the mask. He'd rather give it to one of these families, let them harness its power to deal a blow back to the idiotic, idle rich. Not that he says that out loud. But he can still dream of someone terrorizing the poor guy, making him afraid to stay in his home after he's wheedled and scared and wrenched so many families out of theirs. It'd serve him right.

Dean can honestly picture the entire scenario. Think Jim Carrey but with the creepy dialed up to a hundred and seven. Invading his space, telling him disturbing details about the people it's killed for his sake. Turning the man's mind upside down until he doesn't see any safe place.

Poetic justice.

The connection clicks in his mind and he immediately tries to shove the rest of the thoughts out of it. He's not that guy. He's already told Gabriel he's not. Because he cares, because he wouldn't do that. No matter how much the guy deserved it.

Yeah, he would. Who's he kidding? He totally would.

And what's more, he should.

His morals fight him all the way past the ceremonial burial ground where they're supposed to be breaking the mask in half and burying it. Sam has to yell at him to turn back. Dean swears he hears the mask cackling and rattling in the trunk.

* * *

"So Sam," he says, after a half-hour of silent driving, trying not to say it. The heat's dissipating into the chill of Colorado mountains, and it loosens his tongue. "You, uh, you think we'd ever go our separate ways?"

Sam stares at him for a long moment. "What are you talking about?" he says, his tongue drawing the syllables carefully.

"Just as a hypothetical," Dean adds. "You think anything'd ever happen that we'd say it's time to split up?"

Sam's still, thinking about it. He draws his hand across his cheek, tapping his lips briefly. "Honestly? I've sort of given up on the idea."

Dean almost drives off the road. "So you mean you'd want to--"

"No!" Sam's this close to grabbing the steering wheel. He waits for Dean to straighten out before he goes on. "Dean, I'm happy. I like what we do. It's just I wish you had a chance to do something for you, you know? I had a break. I went to college. You've done this your whole life. And if you wanted to do something else, I just-- I hope you wouldn't turn it down because of me, you know?"

A grunt escapes Dean's mouth, but he's too busy turning Sam's answer over and over in his mind to form words of his own.

"Dean." Sam's quiet and even. It's infuriating. "Is something going on?"

"No." Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "But suppose, hypothetically."

"Hypothetically?"

"Yeah. Hypothetically. Suppose I decided to go somewhere for a while."

Sam leans back, giving a short sigh. "OK. Suppose."

"So, what would you do?"

"That depends, Dean. Where would you be?"

Dean hasn't thought about that part of the hypothetical. "Suppose-- suppose I couldn't tell you," he spits out.

"You couldn't tell me? So what, is this some kind of secret mission?"

"Not quite. Think... more like an extended vacation."

"A vacation you can't tell me about."

Dean scowls. "Dude, it's my hypothetical. Just go with it."

A laugh skitters from Sam's lips. "Fine, fine."

"So, hypothetically, what would you do?"

"Hypothetically? I'd worry like hell about you, and I'd probably look for you."

Dean's heart plummets to his stomach. He should have known better than to think this conversation would go well.

"But Dean--"

A warmth lights Sam's voice. Dean looks over and sees the same light in his eyes. A lump wells up in his throat, and he swallows it hard.

"If there's something, really-- if you need to do something for you, you can tell me, OK? I mean, as long as it's not something where I'll never see you again. I can deal." Sam's tone tries to be evasive, casual. It's not working. Dean's fingers tremble on the steering wheel.

"You'll see me again," he says.

Sam nods. That's all they talk about it.

* * *

Dean doesn't take the car. He figures Sam'll need it, and Dean'd rather leave it with Sam than bring it with and submit it to whatever Gabriel's (not-Gabriel's) got planned. So he just saunters out to a green light, backpack stuffed, and stands by the side of the road, his thumb hitched out, waiting for his ride. It'll be the right one. he's pretty sure about that.

A Mack truck pulls over and a redneck leans out of the cab. "Where to?"

Dean shrugs. "You know where."

The redneck's expression quirks into a grin. "Is that a yes?"

"Yes," Dean says. "On a few conditions."

"Conditions? Do tell."

Dean rounds the truck's front and slips into the passenger seat. "Two. First of all, I want a trial run. I give it a go, but if after a month I don't like the gig, I get to leave it behind."

"Just call me Mr. Applegate," Gabriel says, a raspy aside in a foreign voice.

"Huh?"

"Never mind." He starts the truck. "It's doable. Thirty days, starts first thing tomorrow morning, but that’s all you get. Shall we?"

Dean waits for the kick of the gear to settle him deep into his seat. His heart is thrumming with a sudden, inexplicable excitement. As he looks out the window, watches the motel where Sam's staying get smaller in the rearview mirror and finally dot out of sight, he gives a soft smile. It feels like launching into space. Dean the astronaut, exploring yet another strange new world.

He turns to Gabriel, who's melted back into his usual form, the scrappy janitor-cum-judge-cum-TV doctor who finally revealed himself as an angel. The familiar face gives Dean some comfort. "So. The other condition."

"Oh. right." Gabriel mutters, clutching the gear shift. "I'd hoped you'd forgotten about that. I really hope it's not a deal-breaker, kemo sabe, because I'd hate to have to turn this thing around--"

"It's you."

Gabriel loses his grip on the lever, cocks his head, squints at Dean. The truck happily barrels onto the highway, switching its own gears. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. What did you say?"

"You," Dean says. "And not this bullshit 'idea of you,' either. I need the real Trickster, back alive, showing me the ropes. That means full resurrection, magical powers and all, for as long as it takes until I'm ready."

Another blank moment. The truck whistles dramatically.

Dean blinks. The face that smiles back at him is no different, but his mind tells him more than his eyes that something changed. Gabriel's more solid, more real than he was just a moment ago.

"Ask and ye shall receive," Gabriel says. And to prove his reality, he promptly turns Dean's backpack into a giant, living, slippery, thrashing sturgeon. “But warning -- this is only good for the trial period. Thirty days max. Please make a note of it."

"Oh, God." Dean groans, wriggling his way backward on his seat and letting the fish flop onto the floor of the cab. "What have I gotten myself into?"

"Don't worry, boy wonder." A hand snakes over to pat Dean on the damp knee. "I'll make it good for you."

The fish flops one more time and turns back to canvas. Dean looks at it a moment before deciding it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. He laughs, loudly, feeling free, feeling like the sky is open to him for the first time in years. Gabriel chuckles briefly along with him and then just grins, watching the emotion crest on Dean's face and subside again.

"So what made you say yes?" he says finally.

Dean grins at him. "Honestly? It just seemed like the right time to make a change."


	2. Poetic Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without Gabriel, the world needs a Trickster. Dean is offered the job.

Dean awakens in a sea of white.

Muffled, stifled, confused, he flails, tearing through the stuff with a wildly sweeping arm before realizing he's not in a snowbank or a river of creepy demon juice but swimming, instead, in a ridiculous amount of toilet paper.

"Sammy!" he yells, ripping through another several layers of TP. "This isn't funny!"

Then he breaks through the final layer.

"Wrong and wrong again," Gabriel says with an easy smirk. "First, I'm not Sammy. And second, this is, actually, incredibly funny."

Dean pushes away the rest of the thicket of paper and looks around. Gabriel's shacked them up in an empty house. He says it was abandoned, but Dean suspects he just uprooted the owners and planted the two of them there overnight -- muddy soccer cleats in the front hall say as much. Dean thought about demanding Gabriel tell him where the family has gone, but then he decided it wasn't worth the effort. "So this is your idea of a welcome?"

"You're my apprentice now, grasshopper," Gabriel says, nodding sagely. "The training begins today."

Dean grumbles and gets up, balling up the toilet paper to toss a hunk at Gabriel, who dodges it smoothly with a triumphant little cackle. " _This_ is training?"

"Sure." Gabriel snaps his fingers and the mountain of TP disappears. "You have to learn to think like a Trickster. So be prepared to get tricked."

"Nobody ever tricked _you!_ "

"And therein was my downfall." Gabriel nods sadly. "If I hadn't underestimated my brother's capacity for subterfuge, I might still be alive. You're going to have to learn to see me coming, my young pupil. Or you will end up being the tricked instead of the Trickster." He hops up from his perch on a set of dresser drawers. "So. Breakfast?"

* * *

Gabriel's got flour and milk and sugar out on the kitchen counter, and as they arrive in the room he pulls milk and eggs out of the refrigerator. "Pancakes?"

"Why the hell not." Dean nods, casual, but his brain is cooking with an idea. He eyes the spice rack, sees the salt shaker, then says, "I could help out. You got a recipe?"

Gabriel's back is to him - he's examining an egg for imperfections, skeptically, as though he expects a baby chick to be born from it any minute. "2 cups flour, an egg, half a cup milk..." He finds a glass and cracks the egg into it as Dean dutifully follows instructions.

Well, isn't this interesting. Domestic, even. Gabriel's humming (the Imperial March from Star Wars, but still, he's humming), and there's sunshine filtering through the windows, like a bizarre scene from suburbia. Dean almost feels like a husband for an instant. Rising urge to kill his "wife" included for extra authenticity. Oh, well, he has an idea for that.

"A cup sugar," Gabriel instructs, and Dean snickers. He opens up the salt shaker, pours its contents into the measuring cup, and holds it above the bowl. His wrist tips just a tad, and then Gabriel's holding it firm, grinning at him knowingly. "I actually don't love salt in my pancakes," he says.

"Damn it! How'd you--"

Gabriel wrests away the salt and lets him go. "I think like a Trickster, remember?"

Dean grumbles and turns away. He has the feeling that this is going to be a very long stretch of being humiliated over and over again, which is really not his favorite thing to do. But the itch is still there, to do this, to try this. Because he can. Because it's an opportunity he'll never have again. And because Gabriel, standing there making pancakes as real as can be, is actually kind of a sight for sore eyes. Dean gets the feeling Gabriel understands him, the humor and the grit that makes him up, better than anyone else living. Excepting maybe Bobby and Sam. And Gabriel accepts it -- no, Gabriel _likes_ it - and that's kind of a revelation.

"OK, sunshine," Gabriel purrs in his ear, too close, and Dean jumps. "Pancake?"

Dean looks around and sees a stack of golden brown cakes on a crisp white plate. It looks like heaven. "Oh, yeah." He settles down at the table to eat, pours syrup over the stack, and digs his fork in to take a bite.

He's not sure which happens first - the curl of his lip, the watering of his eyes, the overwhelming urge to spit the mouthful out, or Gabriel's smug intonation. "Changed my mind, decided to try the salt after all. How is it?"

Dean runs to the wastebasket and spits out the pancakes, then grabs the carton of milk and chugs half of it down. Slamming it down on the kitchen counter, he glares at Gabriel. "Damn it! I'm going to get you."

"Of course you are. One of these days. At least, that's the hope." Gabriel shrugs and pats the back of the other chair, in front of which an identical stack of pancakes waits. "Now, c'mon, Rocky, this set's normal. Gotta feed you well before we start your training regimen."

* * *

Training, as it turns out, ends up being more eating. Only this time instead of pancakes at some soccer mom's breakfast table it's tiny little cakes that look like they've been painstakingly designed possibly by a jeweler, and tea in little china cups that Dean can't figure out how to hold without his pinky sticking out like a girl. They're in some crystal-chandeliered ballroom of a restaurant, and Dean's wearing a suit and tie. Gabriel is too, only his jacket is a disgusting shade of royal blue and he's wearing a bowtie, which he insists makes him look like some celebrity Dean's never heard of. And he's popping the bite-size cakes in his mouth at an alarming rate. And Dean himself would be the first to say, when _he_ thinks you're eating at an alarming rate, that's saying something.

"So what are we doing here?" he asks after taking a sip of the tea, which is bitter and acrid on his tongue and could never be coffee in its wildest dreams.

"Picking your first victim." Gabriel takes a sip of his tea, which appears to be carbonated. Dean frowns and peeks over the rim - looks like Gabriel's had it switched for Mountain Dew. "Here we are in a den of the kind of people you absolutely despise, am I right? Choose the one who annoys you the most, and we'll play."

Dean blinks. "Seriously? Wait, how am I supposed to do that? I don't know anything about these people. Don't you only pick on guys who deserve it?"

"Yeah, but this is a training run," Gabriel says breezily. "So just go with an annoying one. Besides, this job is supposed to be _fun._ " He gives a wide, lopsided grin.

"All right." Dean looks down at Gabriel's tea. Now it's orange, and still fizzy. "What the hell are you doing to your drink?"

"Making it drinkable," Gabriel replies. Dean has nothing smart to say in response to that. He shrugs.

Around them, people mill about in costume jewelry and circus tents cleverly disguised as dresses. A woman who looks like she's eaten nothing but cakes all day trumpets by, waving down a waiter and demanding the tea be warmed up again. He looks right down into her cleavage and wrinkles his nose, then takes back the teacup with a snatch of a bony hand. Dean can't tell which one of them is more cliched. But neither of them annoy him enough to make him want to exact any sort of revenge. He takes another cake, frowns at the lattice-like decoration on it, and pops it in his mouth.

"So is this how you spend your time?" he says through the mouthful. "Eating sugary crap and watching people be annoying?"

"Spent my time," Gabriel corrects. "Dead, remember?"

"Brought back to life."

"Temporarily. Gotta let the natural order take its course."

Dean snorts. "Right, natural. Like death by Incredible Hulk."

"You remembered that one, eh?" Gabriel looks proud of himself.

"You're avoiding the question."

"You're avoiding the mission. Eyes up, _Daniel-san._ See anyone worth making miserable?"

"I'm serious now. Why do you have to be so determined to keel over again? Wouldn't you rather--"

"Honestly!"

The voice is soprano, shrill and decidedly irked. Dean looks up to see a body that's too perfect to be anything but silicon, but still flabs out in the areas that aren't boobs-thighs-tummy, remnants of the body that Nature gave this girl before she decided to trade generic in for a brand name. She's talking on her cell phone, her left hand thrust forward, palm down. On her finger glitters the hugest gem Dean's ever seen, a diamond that has to be the size of a grape. Dean forgets what he was saying and watches her like she's a car wreck or a reality show.

"It's the ugliest thing I _ever,_ " she says. "I can't _even._ " Apparently she's allergic to finishing her sentences. "It looks like an _anvil,_ I don't even _know..._ "

Dean meets Gabriel's eyes over the table.

"Her?" Gabriel's smirking.

"Her."

* * *

She isn't hard to eavesdrop on. The story, as well as Dean can deduce, is this: Her boyfriend proposed last night and as happy as she was to be engaged to the hunky heir to a jewelry empire, she's sort of horrified that the guy (twenty-two, he's twenty-two!), having no eye for jewelry, just got her the largest diamond in the collection instead of the most beautiful. Dean still doesn't know jewelry aside from the occasional thumb ring, and he can't imagine how this poor sap could have had half a clue. But empathy is definitely not part of this girl's virtues, as all she can talk about is how the diamond is the shape of an anvil. She says anvil more often than a representative of the ACME corporation on the phone with Wile E. Coyote.

"She says that word one more time, I'm gonna drop an anvil on her," Dean mutters.

"You can do that."

Dean rolls his eyes. "I'm not gonna drop an anvil on someone just because they're obnoxious."

"Why not? Worse has happened to better people."

"Because I'm not like you." Anger darkens Dean's features. "I don't kill people who don't deserve it."

"Right. Because you never put a knife in the throat of an innocent kid with a demon riding him."

"I'm not gonna get in this fight with you. You know you're full of it." Dean sits back. "Anyway, who says I have to be cruel just because I'm a trickster? Maybe the new trickster is a nice guy. Maybe he teaches lessons that people can walk away from. As better people."

"A kinder, gentler pagan god?"

"Why not? He could be a force for good in the world."

Dean and Gabriel look at each other for a moment.

They burst into hysterical laughter.

"It's a thought, at least!" Gabriel says. "Good luck with that."

"Hey, just because you're a hopeless case doesn't mean everyone is."

"True." Still wiping his eyes from the outburst of laughter. "But the question remains, is anyone who is still redeemable worth a Trickster's time?"

"I don't get it."

"Go drop an anvil on her," Gabriel says. "Or at least _near_ her. Then we'll talk."

* * *

Dean just has to imagine the scenario. He figures an anvil would have to be somewhere where they make weapons, like a martial arts supply shop. And as he tails Bratty McSilicon out of the restaurant and down the street, somehow or other there's one just around the corner. On the second floor. Going out of business, and carrying down the heavy equipment via crane.

He stares at the rope and it snaps.

Bratty screams, one of the movers pulls her out of the way, and the anvil drops an inch away from her. Her copious bosom heaving, she stares into the eyes of the mover who's saved her. And Dean suddenly sees potential for a better future. Five years later, she'll have returned the ring, dumped the poor jewelry heir, and settled down for a joyously humble life with her savior in a basement apartment downtown. She'll work two jobs and still have time for scorchingly hot sex and an occasional viewing of Jersey Shore.

Dean's so pleased with himself, he's practically floating all the way back. Gabriel meets him at the door of the restaurant, arms crossed, bowtie crooked. "Well, that went pretty well," he says. "You might want to come back down to Earth, though."

"What?" Dean tries to wipe the grin off his face. "I did a good job. Sue me for being proud of myself."

"I can see that." Gabriel points at the sidewalk. "But folks are starting to stare."

Dean looks down.

OK, so he's not just practically floating. He's actually floating.

He grabs at a nearby newspaper box, misses, and falls a few inches before managing to catch himself on thin air. "What the hell?"

"Oh, I must not have mentioned that part." Gabriel slaps his palm to his forehead. "You trick someone, you get some power. You already have the basics, but the fun stuff happens once you pull off a good prank."

"I don't--" Dean grabs for Gabriel's arm, then the door, but he keeps sort of soaring upward. "Son of a bitch!"

"Relax, relax. Just look at the air."

"What do you mean, look at the air? It's air--"

Dean breaks off. Now that Gabriel mentions it, the air does look-- kind of different. Like there's tiers, or layers, thin as paper, and if he tries he can step up through them, or slide up if he chooses. He catches Gabriel's gaze, and Gabriel gives him a small nod.

"Really?" he whispers.

"Really." And just to be a dick about it, Gabriel zooms up above the building and beckons down to Dean to catch up.

Dean gets a foothold on the layers of air, and he slides into the sky.

* * *

They're somewhere up above the city now. Dean's chucked his boots on the roof of a skyscraper and is racing up into chilly air in bare feet. He's learned how to rise and dive, and now he's trying barrel rolls, somersaulting through space until he has to look for the ground to know which direction it's in. Gabriel applauds his aerial acrobatics and helps him get oriented again. Dean sits on a ledge of nothing and watches his toes hanging in space below.

"Different than flying in an airplane, huh?" Gabriel says. Glowing, short of breath, Dean laughs in response. "I'm glad the first thing you got was this. I figure the mind-reading will be a bit freaky when that comes around."

"It's wild." Dean nods. "Man, if I were you I would have done this all the damn time. How come more of you god-types don't actually fly around?"

"Well, I can't speak for any of the others, but for me? Nobody to talk to up here." Gabriel cruises by him, doing the backstroke. "I am a social animal."

"You mean a sociopathic animal."

"Same dif." He leans back, his head upside down, and continues to float.

Itchy to move again, Dean dives down through a layer of clouds. He comes out sopping wet, and shakes it off with another thrilled laugh as he rolls back up to Gabriel's altitude. "I feel free," he says, softly, not to Gabriel or himself but just into the air. It's almost reverent, prayerlike.

"You haven't even gotten to the best part," Gabriel says.

"Oh?"

Gabriel nods. He slides over close to Dean, quiet Sphinx smile on his face, and points a finger downward.

Dean follows it with his gaze, staring down at the world below the tip of Gabriel's finger. And as he stares, and as Gabriel points, Dean's vision starts to ripple. It's telescoping downward, ripping through the clouds and the endless layers of air, until he's focused so well on a low roof that he can see each individual tile. "Wow," he breathes, hand clutching at Gabriel's free arm so the sudden focus doesn't knock the balance out of him.

"Stay with it," Gabriel says.

As Dean watches the roof itself peels away into transparency, and Dean is staring down now through it, into the building, It's a motel. And he's looking into a motel room. His brother's motel room.

Sam is sitting on the bed, polishing his gun. His laptop is open on the bed next to him. Before Dean's faraway eyes, he gives a soft smile, as though laughing at a private joke. A moment later his cell phone rings. Dean can hear it. He hears Sam answer, the clipped "Yeah" followed by a warmer, "Oh, hey, Bobby. Yeah, I got your text. I think you're right about the suicides. They're definitely not natural."

Dean's vision recoils, returns, and he staggers back as though struck. Tears are coming to his eyes.

"You still with me, sport?" Gabriel is holding his wrist lightly. "Too soon?"

Swallowing hard, Dean shakes his head. He's trembling with relief. Sam's hunting. Sam's OK.

"You know?" he says softly. "I think I thought I'd be disappointed to see he was doing OK without me. But I'm not. It's all right, to do our own thing for a while. It's healthy."

"Define healthy," Gabriel says. "He hunts monsters, you're learning to kill people in creative ways."

"Hey, we were going to talk about the killing-people thing," Dean chides.

"Yeah." Gabriel leans back, lets go of Dean's arm. "I guess we were."

"So what, then? Why can't a Trickster not kill?"

"Like I said before," Gabriel answers, a bit of irritation furrowing his brow. "The folks that aren't worth killing generally aren't worth your time. In my day, I saved my powder for the real bastards. Can't go around teaching lessons to every jerkwad on earth, or you'd never have a moment's peace."

Dean shivers. The altitude is making him a little dizzy. "You mean you didn't just choose the cases that amused you?"

"Course not. I chose the guys who were going to get away with it, that nobody was gonna teach a lesson to. That's the beauty of this job. You get it to stick it to the guys who go around sticking it to others."

Dean gazes at him. "You sound as if you miss it."

Gabriel fidgets. "It's not as though I retired. Cut down in my prime, you know."

"And now you're back. So why the hell are you so damn eager to die again?"

Gabriel raises mournful eyes to his. Dean realizes he's asked the wrong thing.

"It's cold up here," Gabriel says, and he darts down through the clouds and out of sight.


	3. Poetic Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without Gabriel, the world needs a Trickster. Dean is offered the job.

Dean's wearing a ten-gallon hat and sitting in a saloon in South Texas, because that's where Gabriel says his next mark's going to be, but right now Dean's getting awfully distracted by the sheer amount of vice streaming into his mind. After last week's bully got hugged half to death by an overamorous koala at the local zoo, Dean got the power to read minds, and although he technically knows how to shut off the spigot, he’s still amused enough by what he's hearing that he can't help but let it all filter in, the cacophonic thrash metal of sin and guilt. This girl's looking for a lay because her husband doesn't get her off. That guy's trying to forget the ginormous mistake he made at work today. The bartender's rating everyone by hotness and likelihood of leaving a tip, and the cop by the door is still on duty. It's so fascinating, Dean doesn't much want to get down to business.

Of course, when Randy "Bubba" McGraw comes swaggering into the bar, the sheer stream of hate and avarice that flows from his head drowns out everything else. Something about damned Mexicans, and damned hobos, and that damned woman who thinks she can just shove a baby in his face and make him fork over a handful of his hard-earned money when she'd said she was on the pill, and then his own damned wife who wasn't much better.

And with all of this, not a whiff of real anger, as though he'd just been living with this swimming around in his belly so long he'd made it a point of pride. Yep, this is his mark. Dean watches him through narrowed eyes as he comes and sits a few stools away at the bar.

Dean tilts his head. "You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders." He snaps his fingers at the bartender and declares, "His is on me."

Bubba stares him down. "What's yer game?"

"Just making an observation." Dean runs a finger around the rim of his own glass.

Before long Dean's got him on the hook, chatting back and forth about how men of McGraw's character ought to be sipping champagne near pools with beautiful women instead of presiding over old backwoods oil rigs staffed with illegals who just eat up the nation's money and leave none for good old red-blooded Americans. At least, Dean points out to McGraw's vehement agreement, McGraw knows he can stand anything, having to put up with that travesty.

"See, for a for-example," Dean drawls pretending that fifth shot of whiskey had some effect, "that. I bet you could last a full minute on that." He hooks his thumb backward at the mechanical bull that's on a platform in the back of the bar.

"I ain't never tried that," McGraw says.

"Give it a shot?"

McGraw kicks up off the barstool and saunters over. He runs his hand over the seat and slings his leg over it experimentally. Dean walks up, slaps a quarter into his palm, and backs off, grinning, arms folded over his chest.

The quarter slides in. The machine comes to life. Dean lifts one hand to snap his fingers.

And all at once Randy McGraw is in the middle of a bullring, atop a ten-foot monster of a bull, with sawdust and cheering crowds all around, and just as soon as he's on the bull he's off it, sailing through the air and landing flat on his back and staring up at the blazing sun. Dizzy, nauseated, aching, he tries to move but can't, not until a hand slides into his and he's being hauled to his feet. By Dean, and he looks around and only sees the environs of the bar and the vaguely amused stares of the drunks watching.

"That was real," he says. "Just now, that-- that was real--"

"Real good riding, yeah," Dean says. "You hung on for a while there." This brings a laugh from the hangers-on. McGraw scowls, still looking a bit dizzy and like he's gonna lose his liquor.

"It's a hell of a machine," Dean goes on. "Wouldn't you say?"

McGraw nods.

"Good old American ingenuity," Dean adds. "Give it another stab?"

"That's -- that's right," McGraw says, seizing on it. "That's what I'm talking about. American innovation. Hell yeah." He pulls a quarter from his own pocket and slings his legs around the plastic seat in a manner that has the potential to be pornographic. "Let's do this thing."

"Let's," Dean echoes and he snaps his fingers again.

McGraw's back in the bull ring, but this time he's standing in the sawdust, surrounded by jeering crowds. Jeering, not cheering, and one twist of his head to the side and he knows why. This isn't a hometown crowd. He's being shouted at in Spanish, more than one _gringo_ among the swears he doesn't understand, and McGraw panics, tries to run, heads toward the side of the arena, and ends up facing down the one thing that seems to hate him more than every Mexican (or Spaniard, or Puerto Rican -- McGraw sure as hell doesn't care about the difference) in that stadium combined: a real, huffing, snorting, gigantic bull.

Somewhere in the panic that besets him afterward, McGraw realizes he's dressed in all red.

He screams like a girl, panics, and runs like hell. Another stumble and he's tasting sawdust; he gets up and can't see the bull. There's a shout of _Toro, toro_ from the crowd, and then there's a rip of pain through his ribs and he can feel the bull's fetid breath hot on his shoes. Horns have ripped into him from behind. He struggles, but his own bulk is too great to free him from the prongs. The bull tosses its head, and McGraw is ripped from its grasp. He flies through the air and lands on his back on the sawdust.

Except it's not sawdust, it's wooden planks, and he's inside the bar, watching blood drip from a pair of pool cues that are protruding from the rack at the side. He tips his head back, the gasps of the bargoers ringing in his ears, to look up at the underside of the mechanical bull. MADE IN CHINA is the last thing he sees before he blacks out.

"Stab, shot-- you were practically telegraphing it." Gabriel says, getting up from an adjoining table to join Dean. They make their way out of the bar, unseen by the panicking patrons in their rush to help out McGraw. "Want to be less obvious next time?"

"Because you're always so subtle."

"Because I finish the job," Gabriel snipes. "He's gonna live. And he's gonna remember your face."

"Good," Dean says. "Let him remember. Racist wackjob."

Gabriel thinks about saying something, then drops it. Dean's already playing with the telekinesis he's just picked up, and he's completely distracted anyway.

* * *

And that's how Dean works as a Trickster-in-training. He's all swagger when approaching his marks, all good-natured All-American boy. The wife who's screwing the gardener while slowly draining money from the husband's fund gets a load of him and swoons; he grins his sunny grin and convinces her to run away with him to Tahiti; she ends up in Iceland unexpectedly and has to use her considerable fortunes and connections to figure a way home, by which time the gardener has quit.

The banker who's jacking up mortgage rates and filing false paperwork discovers one day that his ID doesn't have his picture on it, and that his credit cards are all registered to someone else. In fact, he can't convince anyone that he is who he says he is, and Dean takes great pleasure in giving him the eternal runaround when it comes to the customer service call. He's inordinately pleased when the trick earns him an ability to jump through time, and he takes a round of golf with John Wayne before returning to the present and declaring he is officially impressed with himself.

Gabriel's less impressed. Gabriel's critical. He doesn't like Dean's tendency not to go after the hardest cases, and he attributes it to Dean being squeamish about killing someone. Dean argues differently. He says it's way better to keep them alive to learn their lessons. Gabriel says they're too dumb to learn.

They tail a high school bully who's well on his way to becoming a class-A asshole, learning about his addiction to others' pain in small steps, starting with his early years, when he made the life of a local redheaded girl miserable.

"You know what would work well?" Gabriel says in his ear, and Dean nods and fast-forwards the hands of time. She grows boobs, her red hair goes crazy wild, and the bully pines after her uselessly until he's a tubby lard bucket. But then Dean shakes his head, saying he feels kinda bad for the poor fucker, and Gabriel sighs and throws up his hands.

"You can't even get the poetic justice right for these poor schlubs, what happens when you start dealing with the seriously screwed up?" he says,

"What's your definition of seriously screwed up?" Dean counters. "They don't all have to be killers, do they? Don't you get sick of working the same job over and over?"

"The variety's in the punishment," Gabriel says.

"But you're never building anything that lasts. Your bad guys go down, end up in hell, go full demon after a few years. How does that make the world a better place?"

"I'm not here to make the world a better place," Gabriel snaps. "And neither or you. You're here because you have to be here. You have to do this work."

"You know, I think we have creative differences," Dean says. "We come from different places. You were an angel, a god, whatever, I'm a guy. I'm a human being. I don't kill people just because they're screwed up, or have done something stupid. That's not who I am."

"Really?" Gabriel's eyebrows curled upward into wide arches. "Because last time I checked, Dean, not only did you kill monsters, you did a lot of threatening people. Your grandfather, for one. Hell, even that idiot prophet friend of yours. What was the name of that lady thief?"

"Enough!" Dean roared. "There's a big difference between telling someone you're gonna kill them and actually doing it."

"Not to that person," Gabriel said quietly. "Not while they're waiting for you to come after them."

Dean stared at him. "So now you're trying to make me feel bad about it? Regret telling Gramps that he had his name on the list?"

"I'm not telling you to feel anything," Gabriel said evenly. "I'm pointing out the truth. Tell me honestly, Dean. With a little more power, with a little less of the Jiminy that was your brother's big, admiring puppy-dog eyes, what might you have become? What might you have done?"

"I don't want to know," Dean says, his eyes steely, and Gabriel looks up and immediately runs out of words. That's how their conversations end. Gabriel looks up and sees something in Dean's eyes that stops him. And Dean's left alone, wondering. Confused. Feeling like he's missing a piece of the puzzle.

* * *

Also? Gabriel's still pranking him.

Dean wakes up with a mustache drawn on his face. Or he leaves the house with a kick-me sign on his back. Once, Gabriel switched his shampoo with something that turned Dean into a redheaded spiky-haired anime character of a guy for the day. Dean hasn't been able to get a shot back at him. Despite the fact that they're still sharing the same place (teleporting, now, to various destinations for training runs), with Gabriel ostensibly sleeping in the bedroom next door, Dean's so exhausted and exhilarated from everything he's doing and learning, he's barely even able to give a thought to getting Gabriel back. Which is a bad thing, if Gabriel's serious that Dean has to get one in on him before he can graduate to full Trickster status.

Or maybe it's not such a bad thing.

Because if Gabriel's serious about the other things he's been saying, the minute Dean graduates to full Trickster status, Gabriel drops dead. And Dean's starting to think he'll miss him.

It's Gabriel, after all, who helps him get the hang of each new superhuman power he gains. Not just the hang, but a billion ways to use them that Dean wouldn't think of ordinarily. Who else would suggest that Dean use his brand-new power of regeneration to plaster over a pimple? Or even that a bit of temperature control could be used to add some kink to his lonely dates with his right hand? Yeah, Gabriel went there. And what's more, Dean took the suggestion, and he liked it.

But it's more than learning new tricks. More, even, than having a cheerleader in the front row for every ruthless prank he pulls. Gabriel gets it. He understands what this means to Dean. Even before Dean can admit it to himself, Gabriel gives him a nod and a smile, and that's as far as he needs to go.

"So how does it feel?" he asks one afternoon as Dean's practicing making things pop in and out of thin air.

"Hm? How does what feel?"

Gabriel plunks right down in front of him and grins. "Being a fully functional god."

"Is that what I am?"

"Well, sure! You've got the goodies, you've got the panache. Dean the Deity, poised on the edge of godhood. It's a damn sight better than greasy diner food and getting clawed by mangy werewolves."

Dean summons a can of beer into existence. Not PBR. The good stuff. "Yup, it's pretty good."

"And it's what you deserve." Gabriel's voice drops to seriousness. "It's the payoff the world's owed you all this time."

Dean's brow furrows. He eyes Gabriel suspiciously. "What's with the hard sell? I'm already on the program, remember?"

"But you're stuck at Step 11," Gabriel intones.

"This is about me not killing anybody yet?" Dean rolls his eyes. "I told you, I'm not interested--"

"Well, _get_ interested." A fist comes down on the floor where Dean's squatting. Gabriel's trembling minutely, looking at him with unrestrained frustration. "This isn't about you being some kind of bleeding heart, Dean. I know you too well for that. So what's the hangup?"

Dean sets down the beer, gives Gabriel a long look, and frowns. "I don't get it," he says. "The minute I knock someone off, that makes me a full-fledged Trickster, right?" Gabriel nods. "And that's when you kick the bucket again. So why the hell would I want you to die again? How is that fair?"

"It's going to happen eventually," Gabriel says, irritation clipping his syllables. "You're gonna kill someone, because you're gonna run into someone who deserves it. Just get it over with, take your place in the pantheon already. I'm gone after our thirty-day trial anyway."

"So why d’you want to drop dead before then? You got some kind of ultra-deluxe angel heaven to go to?"

"No!"

It comes out in a shout. Dean's lips curl into a confused pucker. His eyes fix on Gabriel, and he goes still.

Gabriel ruffles his hair. "Angels don't have heaven or hell. I don't remember being dead. I've got no idea what comes next. If anything. For all I know, we just disappear."

"So why the hell you want to--"

"Because I'm scared, okay?"

The words reverberate in the room. Dean still can't bring himself to move. His eyes have gone rounder, more surprised, and Gabriel's now burning with a flush of embarrassment and fear and frustration. "I have to live every day now knowing that eventually - soon - I'm going to drop dead and disappear. It's fricking terrifying, and I'm sick of living with it. I just want to go, so I don't have to keep thinking about it. What's that look for?"

For Dean has started smiling, a barely-there, pale smile through thin lips. He doesn't say a word.

"What?" Gabriel demands again, and his shoulders are starting to tremble.

Dean parts his lips, stares thoughtfully at Gabriel for another moment, and then says, "So, how does it feel?"

"How does what feel?"

"Being a fully functional human being."

Gabriel takes in a breath. Dean's smile cracks open, unfolds across his face.

"Feel pranked yet?" he says softly.

"What?" Gabriel can barely get the word across the threshold of his lips.

"Seems to me you've just joined the human race." Dean shrugs. "You know, that's why we are the way we are, right? Because we don't know what comes next? That's the reason we give a crap. We've only got one shot."

"So, what?" Gabriel says. "You're telling me you brought me back to show me how the other half lives?"

"You did kind of jump in with us at the last minute there," Dean says, shrugging. "Would kinda be just deserts, right?"

Gabriel stares at him for a long moment. His brows, knotted into the center of his forehead, quiver. A word, or a shout, seems to be lingering just behind his closed lips, trapped there to keep from exploding into something irrevocable. He fights with himself for a long moment and then turns away, leaves the room, without a word.

Dean feels as though he's been struck. That didn't go at all the way he thought it would. He keeps forgetting that Gabriel isn't some sort of joke book come to life. Human or angel, he feels things. He cares about things. And something about Dean's suggestion had hit him exactly the wrong way. Something he cares about was betrayed, just now. And Dean doesn't have a clue what it is.

But still. Dean's not the kind of guy who goes and chases after other dudes when their feelings are hurt. Gabriel'll get over it. And Dean has no intention of apologizing.

* * *

So instead of apologizing, he drinks.

Back at a Texas saloon, back under the ten-gallon hat, Dean drinks. He sighs and buries his head in his hands and tries to figure out something to do with himself. There's pretty girls, sure, and there's guys playing pool and looking eminently hustle-able. But those are vestiges of Dean's old life, the things from which he's currently navigating a trial separation. They don't interest him.

What interests him now? Stretching himself, that's what. Spreading his proverbial wings, trying to be everything he could possibly be. Finding that place where he feels utterly and brilliantly himself. But full up with power as he is, he's rudderless. He doesn't know where to go. And he's starting to understand a bit Gabriel's impatience. What does he do with all of this, if he doesn't do what Gabriel's advising him to do? Just keep on practicing forever? Wind out these thirty days and then slap himself back into his old life? Or take up the mantle of a god, be immortal, take everything he wants and amuse himself with poetic justice for eternity?

Screw that. Eternity scares the crap out of Dean. Before this all started, he'd been terrified of dying of old age, of _not_ getting cut down before his time. Immortality would be a bad joke.

No, what's made this fun is the limited nature of it. The idea that for a while, he can fly out of the nest, do crazy things, laugh, kick ass, be with someone who isn't Sam and enjoy it, feel like himself -- the himself he could be, once all his potential is tapped, all his wishes are his to fulfill.

He takes another drink and it's unpleasantly bitter. Since Gabriel promoted him, he's started to have more of a taste for sweets. Part of the transformation to Trickster, he figures. Either that or just Gabriel's influence.

Gabriel's influence is everywhere lately.

Dean frowns, and with a sigh of defeat, he squints and lets his vision telescope out into farsight. He looks beyond the bar, beyond the town and beyond all limits. He looks everywhere, until he sees a man with a flipped-up coif of sandy hair and green-gold eyes, sitting on a pier, toes dipping into the Gulf of Mexico, expression uncharacteristically glum. He looks lonely. And scared. And like he just needs a friend.

And as far as Dean knows, he's only got one.

* * *

Gabriel stiffens but doesn't look back when Dean's feet land on the pier, when his body's weight settles into the wood. Dean coughs. The wind rustles. Gabriel still doesn't turn.

"Look, uh, Gabriel," he says, feeling like a world-class idiot. "I didn't-- I didn't do it on purpose, OK? I was just giving you a little hell. I wouldn't do that to you, pull you out just to make you feel miserable."

"I would," Gabriel says. He gets to his feet, and after a beat and a deep breath, he turns. A plastic smile is molded to his face. "It's the sort of thing the Trickster would do."

"I keep trying to tell you, I'm not that kind of Trickster. I'm not a dick."

Gabriel gives him a quizzical look.

"OK. But I'm not _that_ kind of dick. I don't screw with people who are already in the dirt, and you know it. And even if I were gonna do that to somebody, it wouldn't be you. You don't deserve it."

"And let's count on the fingers of one hand the times I've gotten things I deserve."

Dean blinks. "what?"

Gabriel's voice revs up into a growl. "You think I'd like the idea, huh? The guy who goes around delivering poetic justice, never getting it himself. I love my brothers, I don't want to watch them fight, so I take off and end up stuck in the front row with my eyes plastered open. I throw my lot in with you muttonheads, and end up on the floor with a blade in my chest while the rest of you roll merrily along. I give you the chance to be a god, and you--"

He cuts off, eyes burning with tears, and stares at Dean as though he's expecting something.

Dean's watching the blaze in his eyes, and he's thinking about the things that Gabriel's given him, the things that Gabriel's shown him. All the time, suffering. Fearing, bitter, feeling like the butt of some cosmic joke. Dean knows that feeling, he knows it painfully well, and his heart spins unevenly in his chest, whirring there like a broken motor.

He doesn't even know what he's doing as he's doing it. He feels his feet stumble forward, his arms fill up, and then at once he's embracing Gabriel, holding him tight and whispering into his ear. "It's OK. I'm here. I'm not gonna hurt you, OK? I'm not."

Gabriel makes a whimpering, choking noise next to his neck. It makes Dean's heart constrict.

"Look," he murmurs, "for what it's worth-- I needed this, really badly. And I should say thank you. Thanks for this. For letting me do this. Thank you."

Hands that have snapped fantasy worlds into existence are now trembling, clutching his coat. It's possibly the most powerful Dean's ever felt, despite the flight and the invisibility and the pulling things out of thin air. Gabriel's clinging to him, depending on him. And his body is warm, flush with human fears and feelings, but his mind is the strange, alien, whirring and whizzing province of an angel. Dean's got both his worlds in his arms.

And it occurs to him that he's a Trickster now. He can have whatever he wants. He can have both worlds.

He pulls back far enough to find Gabriel's eyes and lock onto them. In his peripheral vision, the water ripples as it reflects startlingly bright moonlight.

Dean's hand slides over Gabriel's shoulder, holds tight. The muscle tenses, then relaxes beneath his touch. Gabriel blinks innocently. Dean takes a deep breath. The engine of his heart turns over and roars into full slamming life as he finds Gabriel's mouth with his own, locks them together, puckers, licks briefly, and lets go.

Gabriel lets out a brief, shuddering breath.

Then hands cup around his spine, curling upward. Dean's pulled, or he pushes, and he finds Gabriel's lips again. This time they've got the whole night, and the universe, and all the powers in the world. Dean listens beneath Gabriel's skin, hears his heart pound, and Gabriel's fingers trace careful lines of fire up Dean's back. Dean nips at Gabriel's lower lip, enjoying the soft plushness between his lips as he sucks. Gabriel's mouth opens to his and when their tongues touch Gabriel gives a moan that doesn't even sound like him. The wind blows past Dean's neck, and a shudder begins there and ripples down the length of his body.

"You better not be pranking me now," Gabriel murmurs. His voice is lazy, lust-charged, and the growl in it makes Dean tremble hard. Gabriel presses against him, and there's a hard lump there, and at the feel of it Dean tips back his head and grunts uncontrollably.

"We need to be somewhere else," he manages to say, and for once, he makes it happen before Gabriel can remind him he can.

* * *

There was a time in his life when Dean would be afraid of this, or even turned off by it, but this month has been about nothing but pushing beyond his old limits, and right now, the idea of stripping Gabriel down, putting his mouth to every square inch of his body is the most titillating thing that ever occurred to him. Screw conventional notions of sexuality. Dean doesn’t even have conventional notions of gravity anymore. He's a god.

So maybe that means he's calling his own name when Gabriel lies him down, crawls over him and grinds their cocks together. Or maybe it's one of Gabriel's. They're funny little lightning zigzags of thoughts that streak across the landscape of his mind. They don't take much effort, and they're over as soon as they begin. Unlike Gabriel, who just keeps going, working a hot mouth over Dean's stomach and then taking his cock in for a long, suckling exploration. Every piece of Dean goes rigid, his muscles, his bones, the whole frame of his body waiting to move during the whole time Gabriel has him swallowed down.

When Gabriel lets go, a "Fuck!" explodes from him, and he goes from paralysis to endless convulsions. He's never needed anything as badly as he needs Gabriel's body -- that borrowed body, a body that isn't even his own -- to be touching his. It doesn't make sense, to want human contact more when you're becoming less and less human every day. It's a paradox, and somewhere in the depths of his mind it's chiming a deep chord, a warning bell. But that's deep down, and on the surface there's nothing for Dean but the touch of Gabriel's fingertips, his deep wet mouth and the lines of his legs spreading above Dean's. Gabriel slides up over him and touches their lips together briefly, then gives a sharp thrust up, thighs to groin to stomach dragging against Dean's, and Dean cries out and grabs his ass, doesn't let the contact end.

"Fuck, you're so good at that," he gasps, squeezing tight and delighting in Gabriel's wince.

"I have a lot of tricks," Gabriel says, innocent and blank, and Dean growls in frustration, rises up, and rolls over, flattening Gabriel into the bed.

"You're not the only one."

And the tricks come in handy, one by one - above and beyond making the trip to the pharmacy unnecessary, they find their place in the frenzy, each one snapping like a firecracker through Dean's consciousness. Hands that are hotter than hands ought to be. Gravity sliding away as Gabriel cants his hips up to catch Dean between hooked ankles, force him tighter, deeper into Gabriel's body. The mental language of _forward, this way, yes, yes, just like that_ that frees up their mouths to ravage each other's and cry out in incoherent ecstasy when they roll over the edge into shuddering madness. Gabriel is smiling through most of it; he's used to the tricks of lovemaking, just as he's used to every other trick in the book, and he's relishing Dean's every gasp of surprise and desperate clutch of tight fingers against the bedsheet, Gabriel's arms, his hips - and then then they open wide, white starpoints, the tension ripping through every bone in Dean's body the instant before it bursts.

And when Dean thinks they're done, when Gabriel's fingers have teased him to every height the universe has to offer, Gabriel disappears and reappears _inside_ him, space suddenly full and welcoming that had been tight and closed, any number of minute changes in Dean's muscles happening instantly instead so that one minute he's relaxed, the next he's panting and pumping back into Gabriel's thrusts with energy he could have sworn he ran out of ten minutes ago.

"Do you _ever_ get tired?" he breathes, giddy, into Gabriel's collarbone, after he's flown off the edge and come down again.

"Are _you_ tired?" Gabriel says.

Dean surveys his body, and he starts to laugh. "No, I guess I'm not."

Gabriel captures his upturned lips. The night's no longer young, but they are, still, and forever -- at least for now.


	4. Poetic Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without Gabriel, the world needs a Trickster. Dean is offered the job.

They stumble in late to the house, which Dean has started thinking of as his despite the awful prints and suburban stink of it. They're still laughing. Gabriel keeps changing shapes. Dean, too, since he just got that ability. They're Obama and Biden for the first five steps, Nicole and Paris for the next. When they tumble into the shower, they're Bugs and Daffy. Gabriel looks particularly funny with a beak.

Dean morphs back into himself as he lets the water run over his face. "You're way too good at that," he comments when Gabriel pouts at him through Britney Spears' lips.

"I could stay this way," Gabriel says. "Let you screw a girl for the first time in a long time."

"Nah, I'll just ogle." Dean picks up the soap and promptly drops it. "Oops, I did it again."

Gabriel rolls Britney's eyes. "So behind the times." But he rolls her bottom in a slow circle as she leans over to pick up the soap, and Dean grabs her hips, rolls his hardening cock against the firm flesh of her rear.

"I'm good with being behind the times," Dean says. "What have they got these days, anyway? Lady Goo Goo? Baby Bieber?"

"You're so judgmental." Britney's eyelashes are dark and thick, unrunnable eyeliner. It looks like she's stepped, fully naked, out from a Playboy magazine shoot. Not a hair out of place. Dean can't help but rake his eyes over her again and again. He's still learning from Gabriel. His Jessica Simpson, earlier in the evening, had started out picture-perfect but had gained 20 pounds and 5 years with a half-hour. Gabriel had said he liked Jessica better that way, but Dean had been pissed his concentration had lapsed. But Gabriel's Britney stays barely legal and perfect no matter how much shower water sprays into her face.

"I really should stay like this," Gabriel says. "You're undressing me with your eyes, and I'm already naked."

"No." Dean takes the soap from Britney's outstretched hand and then pulls her close. By the time Gabriel's flush against him, he's a he again. "It's all just smoke and mirrors anyway. I like the truth."

Gabriel settles back against him for a split second, a moment of vulnerability. It threatens to be a whole second, which is way too long.

"Get washing my hair, pupil," he demands, and stands up after a devastating teasing push of his ass against Dean.

Dean chuckles and goes for the shampoo. When they're done, they stumble through the hall, dripping water and grabbing each other in various places before falling into bed. Dean gets one glimpse of a hanging calendar in the bedroom before he buries his head in Gabriel's shoulder. Today was day twenty-seven.

They don't talk about it any longer. There's only two ways it all could go. Either Dean accepts, and Gabriel dies, or Dean says no thanks, in which case Gabriel dies. Either way, they have no more than three days together. And they'll be damned if they let one second go to waste.

* * *

They walk a lot down memory lane. In immortals' lives, death becomes a footnote, the butt of a joke, and Dean can't seem to muster up anything more than amusement at their clashes of the past. They argue over whether the piano or the choking on the Pig in a Poke was funnier, and the whole concept of Dean laughing gregariously at his own death is so absurd and borderline insulting that it just makes them laugh harder.

"You're allergic to talking," Dean says. "everything's got to be some kind of absurdist object lesson with you."

"It doesn't _have_ to be. It's just more fun that way."

They're drinking beer on the back porch, looking into a yard that's not theirs, the deck table between them clattering whenever they set down their bottles. "But you got better," Dean said. "Hell, the TV thing was almost fun."

"You're just saying that cause you didn't get it in the nuts."

"I got shot."

"True."

"Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, you were coming around."

"Coming around? Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Pfft. I was on the damn team by the time I bit it. Give me some credit." He sets down his beer bottle and ponders. "Gotta give you some credit, too, though. If you hadn't chewed me out I might not have come around."

"You'd still be alive if you hadn't, though," Dean says darkly. His heart clenches painfully in his chest, and he looks away.

"That's the way of the world," Gabriel says quietly. His fingers brush over the tabletop, skirt Dean's and retreat. "Tricksters notwithstanding, life's not fair."

* * *

The guy literally killed a man for his iPod. Not to fence, not because he needed money or because there was sensitive information on it somewhere, but just because he wanted the damn thing. It's an ugly situation, and now the guy's just sitting on a park bench, playing Words With Friends with someone stupid enough to still consider him a friend, and Dean's more or less outraged.

"You could kill this one," Gabriel says softly. It's day twenty-eight.

"Could," says Dean, and readies the slingshot. "Won't."

The slingshot snaps. The man is hit in the face by the first of many extremely angry birds.

* * *

"You know, I've been thinking," Dean says abruptly in the dark of night. Gabriel's warm, huddled into him, and their bodies are cooling from sweaty heights.

"Never a good sign."

Dean squeezes him briefly, making him give a soft _oof._ The sound huffs into the pillow and is gone.

"So I can fly now. And I can time travel, and make stuff appear, and change my face. That's a lot of power."

"Mmm." Gabriel rolls over to face him. "So it is."

"So how am I not a _real_ Trickster yet? What am I missing?"

Gabriel smirks. His eyebrows lift briefly, and he reaches out one hand to slowly walk up Dean's bare chest.

"The final ingredient." he says. "The one that gives you the power to bend time, to fracture worlds. To make Tuesday come 180 days in a row. To make sure you have to deal with the worst possible Sam, and he deals with the worst possible Dean, and yet you both had the same experiences. That's not power you've got right now."

Dean puckers his lips thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess not. That makes sense."

"And the only way you can get it is if you prove you've got the chops. So--"

"Kill somebody, yeah, right, I know." Dean rolls his eyes.

"So what's it gonna take?" Gabriel presses his palms flat against Dean's chest, looks up at him with round eyes in the dimness. "You've got me hanging by a thread here, Dean. The least you could do is cut me off."

Dean is very, very still for a long moment. Then he shakes his head. "Sorry," he says. "I gotta make this decision, and I gotta do it right."

"You only have two more d--"

Dean cuts him off with a long kiss, pressing him into the bed. His hand cups Gabriel's jaw, and when the kiss ends, his index finger slides across Gabriel's cheek to his lips, holding them closed.

"It's my choice," he says. "My timeline, and my choice. You just have to trust me."

Gabriel looks as though he's not going to let that lie. But the moonlight illuminates Dean's face, and whatever Gabriel sees there, it quiets him. He settles back into Dean's arms, and quietly they pass the night.

* * *

Day twenty-nine and a preacher is declaring the end times are near, and all good Christians should sell their worldly possessions and give to the Church of Megalomaniacal Ego. Gabriel suggests they rapture the stupid son of a bitch. Dean instead appears to him in a vision, calls himself the archangel Gabriel, and convinces him to give away his considerable fortunes away to the poor. Luckily enough, the three million he gave to the soup kitchen comes in handy when he ends up having to go there to get his next meal. Meanwhile, the several hundred followers he's scraped together each are blessed with a run of good luck that will recoup their losses over the next several months. One'll win a decent amount in the lottery; the next will have a car insurance claim settled considerably in his favor; one will get paid hush money by a celebrity they had a one-night stand with ten years ago. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

Gabriel sighs. "There's still time."

"Wonder what Sam's up to," Dean says absently. "It'll be good to see him."

"Wait, wait, wait." Gabriel stops him. "So you're saying no?"

Dean gazes at him levelly. "Did I say that I'm saying no?"

"Dean." Gabriel presses his lips together, swallows, and stares at Dean with real panic in his eyes. "Why are you putting me through this?"

To his great surprise, Dean smiles, brushes a thumb over his cheek, and leans over to drift a kiss across his lips. "Like you said. There's still time."

* * *

Dean wakes up feeling as though he's floating on water. A coolness surrounds him, and he's not sure if it's the air or the soft rush of waves or just gentle sheets rippling against his skin. He heart thuds low in his chest, and he feels almost numb, like he can't move.

The warmth beneath him, around him, makes him want to cry when he remembers what it is. Gabriel, corporeal and real, giving Dean everything before he takes it all away. Dean turns, let the mist of morning lift from his eyes so he can look at the gentle face on the pillow next to his. Amber eyes are open. They turn toward him.

"Hey," Gabriel says, simple, fresh, without intention.

Dean feels his heart lurch through his chest as though on its way to leap for freedom. He frames Gabriel's face in his hands, leans down, and kisses him - a good-morning kiss that begins sweet and quickly deepens into needing, searching. Possessing. Or at least wishing to possess.

Gabriel slides over him like water, mounting him and looking down at him as the sunlight touches his scruff and golden hair. He leans forward to kiss Dean, to trail lips against his shoulders. Dean grunts and clasps him close, whispering things in his ear that he'll never remember afterward, but that he means desperately.

Gabriel's body accepts him as naturally as the ocean accepts water, and Dean slides into him with a groan, immediately lost in him. It's more like making love than anything they've done before this. And it's sadder, truer, and more desperate than even the first time, the first frenzy to touch and be touched.

It's day thirty. One way or another, Gabriel dies today.

* * *

Dean knows who he wants to go after today. Gabriel's surprised; Dean is usually up for anything, Gabriel's suggestions or a whisper of someone's secret while reading random minds, but he’s had this idea for a long while, and he can’t think of a better target for his final trial.

"You're going to do it this time, right?" he says. "Damn it, Dean, I don't want to leave this job to some rank amateur. You've got to take up the mantle of the Bat."

"You don't have a say," Dean says. "Shut up and strap in. I know what I'm doing."

They roll up to a bar in southwestern Iowa, an outpost of sin in a land of straight-shooting corn stalks and preachers, and Dean smiles, soft and sure.

"What's here?"

"Payback."

Dean walks into the bar and almost immediately two guys stand up and try to make a run for it. They're skinny, jittery types, one has a face that twitches like a bunny, and they both look like they're about to vomit or drop dead from shock. But Dean smiles at them, wide, magnanimous, and he spreads his arms like he's going to engulf them both in a hug. "Walt. Roy. Come here, you adorable sons of bitches, share the love."

The bar's plank flooring goes to syrup beneath them, and the stunned hunters can only try in vain to pull their shoes out of the muck as Dean goes up to each of them in turn and wraps them in a huge, decidedly un-Dean-like embrace. They stare at each other, laugh nervously, and return Dean's greetings timidly. "Yeah, uh, Dean, how are you? Uh... nice to see that you're..."

"Alive?" Dean holds Walt by the shoulders, stares into his face smiling like he's the hero in a chick flick about to go in for the rotoscoping kiss. "I told you I'd be back. You should have a little faith, man!" He lets Walt go, wanders over to Roy and grins in his face. "But come on, man, no hard feelings. If I were you, I'd have done the same thing. I should probably thank you. Hell, I got sent to heaven thanks to you. And you know what else?" He winks. "I remember it."

Walt and Roy keep looking at each other like they're going to find the answer to Dean's bizarre behavior somewhere between the two of them. "R-really?" Roy says. "Uh, so, what was that like, then?"

Dean grins wickedly. "Want to find out?"

Roy freezes up and promptly wets his pants.

"I'm just kidding!" Dean guffaws and slaps Roy on the back. Liquid trickles out from the poor guy's pants leg. "Come on, guys. Drinks on me."

* * *

Five or six beers later, Gabriel's a little sick of just watching. Dean's been shooting the shit with these guys for an hour and change, and all they seem to be doing is getting sloshed and happy. A quick check of their memories reveals the reason Dean's intent on tricking them, and Gabriel sympathizes - these bastards came after him and Sam in cold blood, thinking that they could stop the Apocalypse or at least get even with the Winchesters for starting it through some good old-fashioned bullet therapy. Neither of them had any idea just how deep the roots of Armageddon ran, of course, and they've got no idea how deep they're in right now.

But when's the trick? When does Dean pull the final punch? It's dragging on too long, and Gabriel knows that any moment he could end up tossed right back into oblivion. He's hoping that Dean will at least telegraph something to him, let Gabriel at least nod goodbye at him before it's all over.

Who is he kidding? Gabriel doesn't want to go. He doesn't want Dean to pull that trigger at all. He doesn't want midnight to ever come. He wants to hold the hands of time back and hold on to every moment with this new, confident, carefree Dean, the Trickster he's created and molded, just by casting off his anchors and letting him float free. Gabriel feels some pride for that, looking at Dean, seeing him be everything he used to be and everything he can be, without the whole world to weigh down his shoulders.

No, he doesn't want to go, but if he looks at Dean now, sees a god just being born, he can almost live with dying.

The clock slides forward toward midnight, and Gabriel's tense now, feeling alone and dismayed. These are his last few minutes on this earth, and Dean's not even looking at him. It stings like a betrayal, and Gabriel, who's never feared anything, feels almost like praying.

"Well, it's been fun, guys," Dean says, slapping Walt and Roy on the back, "but we'd better finish up. Truth is, I've got an ulterior motive for tracking you two down."

At this point, the hunters are too drunk to be able to tense up, but they sure as hell look scared. Roy puts his hand over his mouth like he's gonna puke.

"Time to bring in the cavalry," Dean drawls. "Yo, Gabriel, come on up here."

Gabriel gets up and proceeds unsteadily from his table in the back to the bar. Dean slings an arm around him. "Roy, Walt... this is my friend, colleague and butt-buddy, Gabriel. Gabriel, Walt and Roy."

"Nice to... hey. Butt-buddy?"

Dean shrugs. "I'd get down on one knee and declare my love, but that'd just be embarrassing." He's talking like he's drunk, which Gabriel doubts he is. Tricksters don't get buzzed after a scant half-dozen beers. "So the thing about Gabriel is," Dean says, "he can read your mind. Gabriel, would you tell these gentlemen what they did wrong?"

Gabriel stares at Dean like he's grown a fourth head. "I think you've had enough, Barney," he says.

"Just humor me." Dean's face goes sober for just a single moment, but it's enough.

"Well," Gabriel says, his voice unsure. "They killed you. And your brother."

"At least for a little while, yep," Dean says. "And what, in your expert opinion, do they deserve for doing that?"

"Dean, I'm really starting to worry--"

"It's a simple question. What's their just deserts?"

Gabriel looks completely out of his depth. "Uh, death. I guess."

Walt lunges for the nearest barstool and grabs it up. Gabriel shouts; Roy cowers, shielding his face. Dean whirls on a dime and catches the stool as it careens through the air, stopping Walt before he can land a blow. Walt lets it go and throws a punch. Dean dodges, tosses the stool aside, and clenches his fist. An invisible hand pushes Walt to the far wall, raises him up, then lets him go, sending him gasping to his hands and knees. Roy's hands are up as he crosses to see about his friend.

"You deserved it!" Walt shouts through a throat that still constricts, forcing coughs out of him. "You brought the end of the freakin' world!"

"I also stopped it," roars Dean, whose face has gone stony serious. "If I'd stayed dead, you think anyone would have been able to keep those angels from throwing down? I'll admit Sam and I were played like pawns on a chessboard. But at least we cleaned up our mess. That's more than I can say for you!"

He kicks at the overturned barstool, and it skids across the floor. He stares at it, huffing angrily, for a moment.

"But hey," he says, "never mind all that. Truth is, I have a decision to make, and that's why I'm here."

He turns to Gabriel. "I trick someone," he says, "and I kill them. And then I become a full-fledged Trickster. A god. Live forever, amazing powers, the works. And all I gotta do is kill these two. Right?"

Gabriel nods.

Walt and Roy gulp in unison. But Dean's face softens.

"Problem is," he says, "I never wanted any of that."

Gabriel steps forward, takes a breath as though to speak, and then stops. Confusion and hurt are swimming in his eyes.

Dean grins at him, a simple, knowing expression. "You gave me a chance to get out, stretch my legs for a bit," he says to Gabriel. "It's good. To know I can still go where I want, be who I want to be. If I wanted to be anyone but this guy right here, the hunter. The pain in the ass you couldn't leave alone."

Now there are tears, and Gabriel's forgotten to make the effort to hide him. His face is slowly crumpling into misery.

"So, sorry," Dean says, reaching out to wipe one tear from the hollow beneath Gabriel's eye. "I know you were betting on me. But after all this, there's only one thing I want."

Gabriel shuts his eyes tight. His fists clench. Dean takes a deep breath.

 _"To kill these sons of bitches."_

Gabriel's eyes fly open in time to see Dean fabricate a shotgun out of thin air. One shot, then two, and the hunters who once killed him are dead on the floor. Their blood seeps dark and red into the wooden slats, melting into the foundation. Dean lifts the shotgun to his lips and blows. "God, that felt good," he says, letting out a brash laugh.

The sound lifts from Gabriel's lungs to his chest to his mouth and comes out almost as a wail. " _What?_ "

Dean looks at him and shrugs. The movement stirs him to more. "What the hell was that? That's what you wanted to do with your last day? Just kill a couple of guys with a shotgun? That's your final trick?"

"Nope," Dean says. "My final trick was on you."

He nods at the clock on the back wall. Gabriel turns and stares.

It's one minute past midnight.

Gabriel looks down at himself. "How in the --"

Dean laughs. "Wait for it..."

"I'm still alive." Gabriel stares down at his hands. Turns them purple, makes them disappear, and then regrows them. "I'm still totally alive."

"What's more," Dean says, "you never died."

He grabs Gabriel by the waist and zaps them both back in time.

* * *

They're standing in the back of the hotel ballroom where gods had congregated. Lucifer stands, tall and angry, and Gabriel sees himself standing up, declaring his loyalty to people, wielding his archangel's knife with purpose. And a moment later, he sees himself get stabbed. And fall down. And pretend to die.

He remembers it now, remembers falling dead, stopping his human's heart, purposefully painting charcoal-gray wings on the floor around him. Once upon a time, it didn't happen that way-- but now, here, it did.

"It wasn't the real sword," he says. "You switched out the swords."

"No," Dean says, "you did." He nods to the side as Lucifer stares down at his brother's body; outside the windows, another Gabriel cracks a smile and flies off into the yonder.

Gabriel remembers that too, abruptly; something happened to change his mind, some suggestion or other, but he can't recall what. "I don't get it. What did you do?"

"Exactly what you told me to," Dean says. "I killed 'em. And because I killed 'em, I became a real Trickster. And I got all those real Trickster powers you told me about. Like bending time. Like changing up reality. And that's what I did."

"But..." Gabriel covers his forehead with his hand, shakes his head as though trying to jostle cobwebs loose. "But _why?_ "

"You don't get it?" Dean snaps his fingers. The ballroom winks out, and they're alone on a dark, dusty road, woods rushing around them and pinprick headlights appearing and disappearing in the distance. Dean hauls Gabriel close. "It's a Trickster's job to give everyone their just deserts, right? But you're the only one who never got his. That sucks, and it's wrong. And you deserve better."

He leans his forehead against Gabriel's briefly, and his voice drops to a whisper. "So how's this for poetic justice? You saved our collective ass. So now you're the one who gets saved."

Gabriel gives a soft gasp. He hovers there, unmoving, for a moment, then leans back to gaze into Dean's eyes. And slowly as dawn, slowly as a bloom opens to the sun, he smiles.

"Good trick," he says.

Dean pulls his face in with both hands and kisses him. Something shakes apart inside Gabriel as the kiss goes on; he whimpers and gives in to the urge to wrap himself as tightly around Dean as he can, leg hiking up to climb against Dean's shins, body weight leaning on him as though Dean were the only solid thing in the universe. They stay wrapped around each other for a long time after their lips part, just being close.

When Gabriel's hands slide across Dean's back to let go of him, at long last, Dean feels power draining from him, like a strand of light pulled from his spine and let go into the night. When they face each other again, Dean's utterly human.

"So, now what?" Gabriel asks, his grin the wide, quirky thing Dean feels like he hasn't seen in days. "Back to the daily grind?"

"More or less." Dean nods. "You go back to pulling tricks, I go back to chasing ghosts, and we all live happily ever after. Except," he adds, "for the part when you come over, every so often, for cheap laughs and great sex."

"I'm so relieved to hear you mention the sex," Gabriel says.

"Everyone is." Dean's grin is so wide it's downright obnoxious.

"So what are you going to tell Sam?" Gabriel nods at the hill; he recognizes the house there now as Bobby Singer's, and with his Trickster's sight, Dean knows, he can see the Impala parked out back.

Dean shrugs. "I'm gonna tell him the truth. Whole story. I'm not keeping anything from that kid anymore."

"What's he gonna think when he sees me alive?"

"Want to find out?" Dean holds out a hand. Mischief twinkles in his eyes.

"Unh-unh." Gabriel crosses his arms. "You see, now _I'm_ the Trickster in this relationship. And I'm not going anywhere until you, how did you put it? Get down on your knees and declare your love."

Dean turns boiling-lobster-red.

"I'm not as easily embarrassed," Gabriel says.

Sighing resolutely, Dean drops to his knees. His hands come forward to slide along Gabriel's thighs; Gabriel gives a soft, desirous sound, and his own knees wobble. "You gotta come down here to get your declaration," Dean murmurs.

"Well." Gabriel melts down into Dean's embrace. "Maybe we can wait a little while longer for the grand reunion."

Dean whispers something in his ear. Gabriel smiles and buries his head in Dean's shoulder. The night moves unfettered above them, and the world inches forward, confident, toward daylight.


End file.
